While China's water resources are ranked as the sixth largest in the world, available water resources per capita are less than a third of the world average, and 300 million rural inhabitants are drinking unsafe water every day.
Water resources per capita stand at 2,185 cubic metres, based on the 2004 population of 1.3 billion, Water Resources Minister Wang Shucheng said during a lecture yesterday at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
According to IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, the world average is close to 7,000 cubic metres.
'Based on the current normal consumption amount ... the country is short of 40 billion cubic metres of water every year,' Mr Wang said.
The country has water resources totalling 2.8 trillion cubic metres.
Mr Wang said the Yellow and Huai rivers and the Hai River basin were facing some of the most serious shortages in the country.
